The Japanese monkey, Macaca fuscata, had been observed in the wild for a period of over 30 years. In 1952, on the island of Koshima, scientists were providing monkeys with sweet potatoes dropped in the sand. The monkeys liked the taste of the raw sweet potatoes, but they found the dirt unpleasant. An 18-month-old female named Imo found she could solve the problem by washing the potatoes in a nearby stream. She taught this trick to her mother. Her playmates also learned this new way and they taught their mothers too. This cultural innovation was gradually picked up by various monkeys before the eyes of the scientists.

Between 1952 and 1958 all the young monkeys learned to wash the sandy sweet potatoes to make them more palatable. Only the adults who imitated their children learned this social improvement. Other adults kept eating the dirty sweet potatoes. Then something startling took place. In the autumn of 1958, a certain number of Koshima monkeys were washing sweet potatoes — the exact number is not known. Let us suppose that when the sun rose one morning there were 99 monkeys on Koshima Island who had learned to wash their sweet potatoes. Let’s further suppose that later that morning, the hundredth monkey learned to wash potatoes.

THEN IT HAPPENED!

By that evening almost everyone in the tribe was washing sweet potatoes before eating them. The added energy of this hundredth monkey somehow created an ideological breakthrough!

But notice.

A most surprising thing observed by these scientists was that the habit of washing sweet potatoes then jumped over the sea – Colonies of monkeys on other islands and the mainland troop of monkeys at Takasakiyama began washing their sweet potatoes.

Thus, when a certain critical number achieves an awareness, this new awareness may be communicated from mind to mind.

“There isn’t anything that he doesn’t have his fingers in. He’s on something like fifty Boards. And one of the problems, he was supposed to be head of the audit committee watching how Enron kept the books. And in fact, they were paying him consulting fees on the side. He was in Margaret Thatcher’s government and he’s the one who authorized Enron to come into Britain and take over power plants here in Britain. And they owned a water system in the middle of England. This is what this guy approved and then they gave him a job on the board. And on top of being on the board, they gave him a huge consulting contract. So you know, this guy was supposed to be in charge of the audit committee to see how they were handling their accounts… Yea, and that’s Lord Wakeham. I mean this is the guy from Enron. He is a real piece of work. He can’t be touched here because like I say he actually regulates the media. So if you complain, he’s got his hand on your pen.”Greg Palast, speaking to Alex Jones, 2002

But enough of him. That man fills me with a deep, painful dread, not unlike that acid indigestion you get when you drink too much coke. Let us turn, instead, to Dr John Pilger, who wrote a typically brilliant piece about that upcoming war on Iran for New Statesman last week. Blair, you see, has been chatting with his Skygod again, so he, “knows the real reasons for an attack and the part Britain is likely to play.”

Yes he does. He is tapped in. Phew!

“Next month,” we know, – even those of us who don’t have nice happy chinwags with Blair’s baby-devouring Skygod, “Iran is scheduled to shift its petrodollars into a euro-based bourse. The effect on the value of the dollar will be significant, if not, in the long term, disastrous. At present the dollar is, on paper, a worthless currency bearing the burden of a national debt exceeding 8 trillion dollars and a trade deficit of more than 600 billion dollars. The cost of the Iraq adventure alone, according to the Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz, could be 2 trillion dollars. America’s military empire, with its wars and 700-plus bases and limitless intrigues, is funded by creditors in Asia, principally China.

That oil is traded in dollars is critical in maintaining the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. What the Bush regime fears is not Iran’s nuclear ambitions but the effect of the world’s fourth-biggest oil producer and trader breaking the dollar monopoly. Will the world’s central banks then begin to shift their reserve holdings and, in effect, dump the dollar? Saddam Hussein was threatening to do the same when he was attacked.

While the Pentagon has no plans to occupy all of Iran, it has in its sights a strip of land that runs along the border with Iraq. This is Khuzestan, home to 90 per cent of Iran’s oil. “The first step taken by an invading force,” reported Beirut’s Daily Star, “would be to occupy Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan Province, securing the sensitive Straits of Hormuz and cutting off the Iranian military’s oil supply.” On 28 January the Iranian government said that it had evidence of British undercover attacks in Khuzestan, including bombings, over the past year. Will the newly emboldened Labour MPs pursue this? Will they ask what the British army based in nearby Basra – notably the SAS – will do if or when Bush begins bombing Iran? With control of the oil of Khuzestan and Iraq and, by proxy, Saudi Arabia, the US will have what Richard Nixon called “the greatest prize of all”.”

If I buy a piece of land, in this here UK, and I drill a hole, and I find me an underground spring, I am not allowed to drink from it, me. No no. If I live on a piece of land which has a well on it, I am not allowed to drink from that neither. Even if the well was there in ye olde Roman times. No sir. I gots to tell a man, who will put a meter on it, and then I have to give my money to whatever shop-front company it is that Enron set up before they ran off with your Nan’s cash not so long ago.

So what? I hear you cry.

I suppose so.

Oh, I do go on, eh? I am sure this is very boring for you, I should apologise. It is late. I am quite insane for being even slightly bothered. My boy Gwilym, he speaks just like my Dad, he says, “so what? Always it has been thus. What can I do? Nothing. A million people marched though London, they were ignored.”

Yeah, we were. Had we gone back the next day, and the next, things might be different. Maybe not. All I know is, democratically elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was kidnapped and torn from office in 2002 by meanerds who don’t like poor people getting to go to school, and would have stayed that way, had his people not come out onto the streets in their hundreds of thousands, and stayed there, despite being shot at by the CIA, until his army decided that, actually, they probably best give the people their democratically elected President back.

Despite the best efforts of the Bush Cabal, demands from pretend-Methodist High Priest Pat Robertson for his head on a platter, etc., etc., etc…

He is still there, and the Venezuelan poor still get to go to school.

True story. Incidentally, I saw Eyes Wide Shut the other night. It is probably Kubrick’s greatest film. I couldn’t believe it. It says everything, I have tried so hard to of late.

If you have seen it, you should read this – never before have I been inspired to search out and read academia regarding motion pictures – and this is a brilliantly considered reading of a brilliantly realised notion.

I was up very late with Mr Jeres making boozey music last night. It was fun. As I was dropping off at some point this morning, drowning in sunlight, pondering the twilight zone in which I find myself wandering daily, I got a text off of Martin.

“He’s finally done it. Blair has said that his decision to go to war was made by God. Fuck me, that puts him on par with such luminaries as Bush and Peter Sutcliffe. Also, Selfridges are installing prison cells in their London store. Wow.”

Poor Martin also left his glasses in a cab last night because he is a drunkard. Now he is a blind drunkard.

But anyway. Back up. The Skygod told Blair to murder 30,000 Iraqis? What a NUTTER!

Did the Skygod tell the Adjudication Panel for England to suspend Ken Livingstone for not cowtowing to a “journalist?”

Do you know why they suspended him?

Just in case, the reasoning was thus. At a party celebrating Chris Smith coming out as the first openly gay MP 20 years ago, Livingstone was ambushed by an Evening Standard journalist. Remember, The Evening Standard have been merrily attacking Red Ken for as long as there has been a Red Ken. Anyway, have at ye transcript:

Finegold: No, I’m Jewish, I wasn’t a German war criminal and I’m actually quite offended by that. So, how did tonight go?

Livingstone: Ah right, well you might be [Jewish], but actually you are just like a concentration camp guard, you are just doing it because you are paid to, aren’t you?

Finegold: Great, I have you on record for that. So, how was tonight?

Livingstone: It’s nothing to do you with you because your paper is a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots.

Finegold: I’m a journalist and I’m doing my job. I’m only asking for a comment.

Livingstone: Well, work for a paper that doesn’t have a record of supporting fascism.

Like, EH? What was wrong with that? Seriously? Am I crazy? Was that not entirely appropriate?

“The only difference between Bush and Hitler,” said Kurt Vonnegut recently, “is that Hitler was elected.”

It’s a good job George Bush isn’t Jewish, eh? Boy we would be in trouble then.

Oh, and stop sending me emails calling me an Anti-Semite whenever I criticize actions of the Israeli government, you lunatics. This is complete madness. If I criticize Rumsfeld does that mean I hate Christians? Are you all on crack or what? Christ!

“For thousands of years we lived together; Muslims and Christians, Shia’ats and Sunnies, in peace and harmony, our history never witnessed this violence, destruction, and free bloodshed like we saw during the occupation years that has passed upon us. Even in the days of Saddam Hussein, we never witnessed such fear for our lives and families, and the Iraqi society was never ripped apart like what happened now…”
Faiza Al-Arji, afamilyinbaghdad.blogspot.com

I was going to say something just now, but fuck that. Faiza says it all. I am going to post her blog of yesterday in its entirety. I know it’s long, and you have an egg to boil, and an Arctic Monkeys MP3 to download, and a celebrity mud wrestling match to watch, but, serious, read this thing. It says it all, basically, everything I was thinking about. We should all be ashamed of ourselves.

Thursday, March 02, 2006Sunday, February 26th, 2006

Good evening…

The last few days were very harsh for the Iraqis, after the bombing of the Imamain Shrine in Sama’ara, then the raids on mosques in many cities of Iraq, so the whole thing would look like a sign for the beginning of civil war in Iraq…

All the Iraqis I talked to in Baghdad or Amman were angry, saying- we are innocent of these actions, and whoever committed them wanted to start a civil war by force in Iraq, but “he” will lose, without doubt, for the Iraqis are not willing to have any kind of war- civil or sectarian…

I follow up the news from Iraq, through the Iraqi satellite channels, the meetings with the people there, and with various religious, political, and social leaderships in Iraq, and they all condemn what happened. And through the Mobile phone messages between me and my friends in Baghdad, I feel like I live among them, recalling back the ordeal of the war in its first days, in March 2003, when we were in our houses watching the events; the state fell, the occupation forces entered, and mercenaries got in, those who destroyed the museum and stole the antiquities, the national library was burned, with the Historical documents, the Ministries were plundered, then burned afterwards (except the Ministry of Oil), the Universities were plundered, burned, or its libraries were destroyed, as if it was a barbarian onslaught, reminding us of what the Moguls did to our ancestors, when they entered Iraq, centuries ago…. It was also said in history books that Tigris, the great river, turned black, because of the ink from the many books that were torn, then thrown in it…

At that time, we were attacked by Mogul Barbarians, who did not understand the meanings of Civilization, Books, Culture, or Arts. And usually, there is hate from the unenlightened against the civilized. The Mogul invaders expressed that hate by destroying Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, and the center of the Cultural, Scientific, and Artistic radiation of its time….

And in 2003, Baghdad was subjected to another type of invasion. It was supposed that the new invaders were civilized, who came on to relieve us from a tyrant they themselves helped manufacture. Then, under many pretexts, they steered the armies, the tanks, the missiles, and the unconventional weapons- cluster bombs, depleted Uranium, or white Phosphorous, and threw it all on Iraq; on lands, and people, under the slogan of: Liberating Iraq.

Those who were to die, died, those who were to be wounded, got wounded, the infrastructure of the country was ruined, and the waters, soil, and Iraqi air were poisoned and contaminated, and shall remain so for tens of years to come, for the traces of these heavy elements, the leftovers of war, will remain to pollute the waters and plants, and to cause diseases like Cancer, Kidney failures, Nervous system failures, bone structure ailments, and other types of diseases caused by the existence of malignant elements in the environment, caused by the war’s leftovers…

*****************************

The “Civilized Country” that invaded us, couldn’t prevent the destruction and devastation from being repeated in Iraq. And we all wondered; was it a lack of management from their side, or was it a deliberate act?

On the contrary; we saw that the American administration invested the plundering and ravishment that took place in Iraq and encouraged it, by propagating it, and emphasizing it through their media, to send a message to the world: these are the Iraqi people, they are a bunch of riffraff savages, we shall stay here to teach them civilization, order, and human rights…

And now, almost three years passed with us under the occupation, what did we reap? The same scene is being repeated again…

The Iraqis are in their houses, and some mercenaries are ravaging the country, bombing, burning mosques, and killing randomly, to tell the world that Iraq is on the brink of civil war…

***********************************************

Going back to my diaries on the first days after Baghdad fell, when I wrote about my confusion, my fear of what is to come, I used to pray to GOD to unite the Iraqis, and not scatter them…

But Iraq today is not the same as it was when the occupation entered… we used to live like one patient family, enduring the sweet and the bitter, as they say; we lived through wars, lost loved ones, drank the goblet of injustice, and endured…

Then, the boycott came, we suffered a lot of life’s cruelty, the lack of revenues, and we endured; we used to long for a kilo of white flour, we used to bake bread in our houses. There isn’t a family in Iraq that didn’t suffer from the cruelty of those days. Our hearts united, because we lived under the same canopy, we consoled each other in harsh conditions. So, we felt like we were one family, gathered by many mutual ties, upon which the generous, sweet, tolerant Iraqi spirit prevailed, and our souls remained optimistic with what tomorrow shall bring…

We aspired to change the political regime in Iraq, by honest, nationalistic Iraqi minds, from inside Iraq, who would plan and scheme to change the regime without heavy casualties; we hoped a new political authority would assume the reins of rule in the country quietly, without violence, revenge, or a settlement of past accounts… We hoped everything should be changed by pure, Iraqi hands, bringing along a new intellectual speech; independent, nationalistic, and mature, in the interior or exterior policy…

But what happened?

It happened that a major force like America interfered in our affairs since Saddam Hussein took over power, and there are some reports of the American Central Intelligence declaring that they helped him to take over the rule in Iraq, then, his clumsy policies went on to realize their demands and special agenda; he started the war on Iran, destroying and weakening the Iraqi economy, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis in that silly war, then, he bombed the Kurdish villages with chemical weapons, but who supplied him with the chemical weapons? He used that weapon against the Iranian army in battles, with the knowledge of the American government, but then he was their ally, and everything he did was satisfactory, and covered up by them; so, there weren’t any scandals in the media, or stories of what he did to the Iraqis. I even read this sentence more than once in different places: the American Central Intelligence used to notify him about every coup attempt the Iraqis plotted against him….

After the Kuwait war in 1991, there was a real chance to overthrow Saddam Hussein by Iraqi hands, but the American government gave him the green light to bomb the mutinous Iraqi cities with artillery and warplanes…

I used to wonder- why?

All the Iraqis used to wonder with me, but I suppose we got the answer now, after all these years; for it turned out that the American government didn’t want the change in Iraq to take place by a decision of the people, or according to their will, for then it would bring on a real national government, that would give the priority to the Iraqi’s interests, having a strong legitimacy derived from the people, and then no one can threaten that government, as long as the people themselves were satisfied with it…

And so, the war on Iraq came along to overthrow Saddam, put the leaderships that America wants, and to work out plans about Iraq’s future according to the American vision, not the Iraqi…

This is the only explanation to the story of why didn’t they help the Iraqis in their uprising in 1991.

The passage of time, and the accumulation of events, gave the reasonable explanations…

************************************

And since the arrival of the American governor to Iraq, Premer, he started implementing the program that the American administration wanted to apply in Iraq… the hateful sectarian and ethnic program, as their media started talking about Iraq as: the Sunnie Triangle, the Shia’ats region, and the Kurdish region…

They introduced these terms into our lives for the first time, and all the media started repeating these terms after them, like parrots…

The temporary Governing Council was appointed on sectarian and ethnic bases, by quota system, a matter which evoked the Iraqis amazement, and wondering… Then, came the State Running Law, laid down by Premer, which was all based on sectarian and ethnic footings, inserting the word (Federalism) as a title to divide Iraq into three parts…

All this was happening, and the Iraqi people were away from the deciding position; these decisions concerning their destiny and future, were dictated from above, from up there, in Washington. Some miserable Iraqi leaders were brought in to sit in the “Green Zone”, moving in the streets of Baghdad under the protection of the occupation army, and do not represent the ambitions of the Iraqi, nor his vision of events…

Can there be more misery than this??

*****************************

Then, came the first elections; the atmosphere was charged with tension, with the attempt to marginalize portions of Iraqi people under silly pretexts. The first election took place, and many Iraqis boycotted it, wondering about its legitimacy… After three months of efforts, a government was formed; the ministries were divided on sectarian bases- this is a Shia’ats ministry, then that means that all, from the Minster, to almost all the employees were Shia’ats, and that is a Kurdish ministry, from the Minster to the employees…

Well then, where shall the engineers, doctors, or lawyers from other sects go? And thus the principal of qualification was dropped when employing people, and the principal of sectarianism came first, to qualify you to enter this place, and that… Since when have we, as Iraqis, thought in this silly way, and evaluated things through this vision? We reverted to dark ages, of which we never heard before, in the history of our fathers, or ancestors…

Some militias started appearing in the streets, this one belonging to this (….) Party, and that one belonging to that (….) Party, while the professional, national Iraqi Army, founded since 1921, was disbanded, its leaders sent to sit home; and some of them were assassinated, some collaborated with the occupation, and others were put in Abu Ghareeb prison…. An agreement to establish Party sectarian Militia was issued, which then were assigned to work in the Interior Ministry, for example, to carry out dirty operations against the Iraqis, all the while being as far as can be from being a national force, or belonging to Iraq…

Violence became the common language on the streets; gangs for killing, looting, and kidnapping, Party Militia that kill and assassinate at will, and the Iraqi citizen is lost, disoriented, wondering: what is to become of us? Where is the country heading to? Who allowed for all this distortion to happen in Iraq?

Aren’t these the policies of the occupation forces and the American administration, since they entered Iraq? tearing Iraq into sects and ethnics, then feeling happy and enjoying to spread the news: they are fighting among themselves, the country is on the brink of a civil war, how can our forces leave the country? It can’t, so, the occupation forces should stay to prevent the civil war from happening….

The outside world is so far away from us, and they believe what they hear, specially the American people…

While we, inside Iraq, live another story, and the truth of the situation is totally different from what the international news media report…

*******************************

Then, came the play of voting for the new constitution; the people said- a constitution dividing the Iraqis and does not unite them, is no good. A constitution whose bases were laid by the American governor, Premer, not by the Iraqis, who gave it the legitimacy?

Then, the second elections took place, a few months ago, the Iraqis were very optimistic about, and almost all Parties participated in it. We said- let this be a new beginning. But the results were somehow forged. A state of anger and frustration spread in the country; someone out there is making fun of us, always pulling us back to the zero point…

The political process is moving in a slow, stupid, hampered way, the American ambassador is a party in the dialogue, stating his conditions for forming the new government, and the crisis isn’t solved yet…

And lastly, these explosions in mosques took place, by unknown hands, to add more gloom to the scene in the Iraqi field…

Well then; if the Iraqis were sitting at home, hurting, and condemning what is happening, the leaders of the religious sects, the political Parties, and the Iraqi Social Coalitions, and even Al-Ba’ath Party, Al-Qai’ida, and the Resistance denounced bombing the mosques and killing the innocents in Iraq…

If the majority of people refused the idea of the civil war, and the leaders of the political and religious formations refused the idea of the civil war…

Well then, who wants a civil war in Iraq?

It is evident that the Iraqis are the last who want it, but there is someone who is pushing towards it, from the day Baghdad fell till now, but he didn’t succeed…

For whose benefit a civil war in Iraq should happen?

Who is the first beneficiary out of it?

We all wonder…

No doubt, the one who wants Iraq to remain torn and weak, wants the foreign occupation forces to remain in it indefinitely, is the one who wants this war to start…

But the Iraqis do not want it, for they say- we are brothers, we can not fight, all that is happening is made- up, carried on by unknown mercenaries, we pray to GOD to expose them, and let their schemes fail…

****************************

I talked to a lot of our kin and friends in Baghdad, yesterday and today, and they said: Do not fear for us, we organized joint comities in the neighborhoods, by Shia’ats and Sunnies, we cleaned the mosques and performed joint prayers. Every ordeal makes us stronger, fear not for us…

I said: Thank GOD, this is Iraq, and these are the Iraqis I have known all my life. They said: Tell the whole world the truth of what is happening, there is no civil war in Iraq, and will not be. All these are lies, and the dreams of the Iraqi’s enemies.

***************************

How can Iraq get out of the dilemma in which America put it?

The answer to this question lies with the Iraqis, and they agree upon it; the answer is to put the bases of a national unity government, without ethnicity, without sectarianism, giving the Iraqis healthy atmospheres for dialogue among them, without the interference of the occupation to support a group or marginalize a group, then, putting a timetable for the withdrawal of the occupation…

For thousands of years we lived together; Muslims and Christians, Shia’ats and Sunnies, in peace and harmony, our history never witnessed this violence, destruction, and free bloodshed like we saw during the occupation years that has passed upon us. Even in the days of Saddam Hussein, we never witnessed such fear for our lives and families, and the Iraqi society was never ripped apart like what happened now…

This ordeal made the Iraqis sterner, their vision clearer, and made them more convinced to choose the path of national unity as an only choice to get out of the deadlock in which the present American administration’s policy put them into, and the only intact way to build a new Iraq….

The Iraqis are in agreement on the choice of National Unity, and rebuilding Iraq all over again, on just, right bases. But who will convince the American administration to get out of Iraq, and stop its military and political interferences?

So, I was walking past my local earlier, on route to meet Jeres, who has my album masters, and lo, a shreik from the doorway doth attract my attention. It is Lois Winstone, singer in my old band. She is working in my local. I haven’t seen her for years! She is well, although she bust her foot at some premiere last night, and is hobbling. But it was lovely to see here. She hasn’t changed a bit.

Anyway. Lots of things happened today, but for some reason I am compelled to reprint this – from a May 13th, 1971, conversation between Richard Nixon, John D. Ehrlichman, and H. R. Haldeman. It is hilarious.

RICHARD NIXON: We’re going to [put] more of these little Negro bastards on the welfare rolls at $2,400 a family–let people like Pat Moynihan and [special consultant] Leonard Garment and others believe in all that crap. But I don’t believe in it. Work, work–throw ’em off the rolls. That’s the key.

JOHN D. EHRLICHMAN: The key is Reagan’s neutrality. If Reagan blasts this thing and says it’s not strong enough on the work-requirement end, that will be very bad.

NIXON: I have the greatest affection for them [blacks], but I know they’re not going to make it for 500 years. They aren’t. You know it, too. The Mexicans are a different cup of tea. They have a heritage. At the present time they steal, they’re dishonest, but they do have some concept of family life. They don’t live like a bunch of dogs, which the Negroes do live like.

EHRLICHMAN: The Mexican American is not as good as the Mexican. You go down to Mexico–they’re clean, they’re honest, they’re moral.

NIXON: Mexico is a much more moral country.

EHRLICHMAN: Monterrey, Cuernavaca. Go into slum areas, and by God they come out with clean shirts on a Sunday morning.

NIXON: The church. You find a helluva lot less marijuana use in Mexico than the United States.

EHRLICHMAN: The unions are actually a stronger force down there than the church.

NIXON: For what?

EHRLICHMAN: For conduct and social policy.

NIXON: … CBS … glorifying homosexuality.

EHRLICHMAN: A panel show?

H. R. HALDEMAN: No, it’s a regular show. It’s on every week. It’s usually just done in the guy’s home. It’s usually just that guy, who’s a hard hat.

NIXON: That’s right; he’s a hard hat.

EHRLICHMAN: He always looks like a slob.

NIXON: Looks like Jackie Gleason.

HALDEMAN: He has this hippie son-in-law, and usually the general trend is to downgrade him and upgrade the son-in-law–make the square hard hat out to be bad. But a few weeks ago, they had one in which the guy, the son-in-law, wrote a letter to you, President Nixon, to raise hell about something. And the guy said, “You will not write that letter from my home!” Then said, “I’m going to write President Nixon,” took off all those sloppy clothes, shaved, and went to his desk and got ready to write his letter to President Nixon. And apparently it was a good episode.

EHRLICHMAN: What’s it called?

NIXON: “Archie’s Guys.” Archie is sitting here with his hippie son-in-law, married to the screwball daughter. The son-in-law apparently goes both ways. This guy. He’s obviously queer–wears an ascot–but not offensively so. Very clever. Uses nice language. Shows pictures of his parents. And so Arch goes down to the bar. Sees his best friend, who used to play professional football. Virile, strong, this and that. Then the fairy comes into the bar.

I don’t mind the homosexuality. I understand it. Nevertheless, goddamn, I don’t think you glorify it on public television, homosexuality, even more than you glorify whores. We all know we have weaknesses. But, goddammit, what do you think that does to kids? You know what happened to the Greeks! Homosexuality destroyed them. Sure, Aristotle was a homo. We all know that. So was Socrates.

EHRLICHMAN: But he never had the influence television had.

NIXON: You know what happened to the Romans? The last six Roman emperors were fags. Neither in a public way. You know what happened to the popes? They were layin’ the nuns; that’s been goin’ on for years, centuries. But the Catholic Church went to hell three or four centuries ago. It was homosexual, and it had to be cleaned out. That’s what’s happened to Britain. It happened earlier to France.

Let’s look at the strong societies. The Russians. Goddamn, they root ’em out. They don’t let ’em around at all. I don’t know what they do with them. Look at this country. You think the Russians allow dope? Homosexuality, dope, immorality, are the enemies of strong societies. That’s why the Communists and left-wingers are clinging to one another. They’re trying to destroy us. I know Moynihan will disagree with this, [Attorney General John] Mitchell will, and Garment will. But, goddamn, we have to stand up to this.

EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality.

NIXON: Huh?

EHRLICHMAN: It’s fatal liberality. And with its use on television, it has such leverage.

NIXON: You know what’s happened [in northern California]?

EHRLICHMAN: San Francisco has just gone clear over.

NIXON: But it’s not just the ratty part of town. The upper class in San Francisco is that way. The Bohemian Grove, which I attend from time to time–it is the most faggy goddamned thing you could ever imagine, with that San Francisco crowd. I can’t shake hands with anybody from San Francisco.

Decorators. They got to do something. But we don’t have to glorify it. You know one of the reasons fashions have made women look so terrible is because the goddamned designers hate women. Designers taking it out on the women. Now they’re trying to get some more sexy things coming on again.